One Way Trip To Mars, Anyone?

I have been fascinated with space for as long as I can remember. When I was a little bloke around seven or eight I was given a book called Hello Mars! At that age I have no idea how I knew what Mars even was, I just remember already knowing that it was the planet next to earth. I read that book every week and luckily I still have it. I hope to read it to my own kids when they get a bit older. By then we may nearly have a colony on Mars.

Ever since I read that book and took a trip to the Perth Observatory (worth a visit) I have been fascinated with space, so much so that I am incredibly annoyed that we seem to have fallen behind on space exploration.

All of the moon walks occurred years before I was born. The only things that have happened in the last few decades were a few rovers and orbiters. Which is cool, but come on, we last walked on the moon in 1972, in 42 years we haven’t been back or visited any other celestial body, what is with that?

Mars One was started with the intention to send humans to Mars for the purpose of establishing a permanent colony. I nearly fell off my chair when I heard about it. At first the project seems like a bit of a long shot but I am still going to follow it every step of the way.

Watching Mars One succeed with their Lander in 2018 will go a long way to convincing people that they may have a real shot at getting humans to Mars. I am too excited to be skeptical, I even bought myself a Mars One coffee mug to support the project. I want to see people on Mars!

Sort of like Big Brother on TV except it will actually be worth watching. Tweet This

The team at Mars One have already started the astronaut selection process. They had over 200,000 applicants from all corners of the world. After reviewing all the applicants they were left with a shortlist of 1058, which has been further reduced to 705 due to candidates dropping out for personal and medical reasons.

I suggest reading the Mars One FAQs page it will answer all the questions you are thinking up right now. The biggest thing for people to swallow is that the people who get selected to go to mars will never be returning to earth. Each member of the Mars colony will be fully trained in multiple fields for 8 years before embarking on the one way trip to mars.

To say I’m excited is an understatement. This is every nerds dream!

Science fiction becoming reality, my book Hello Mars might not be that far fetched at all. I realise that this could all turn out to be way too hard and expensive and not actually happen. But it seems like they are gearing up to give it a bloody good go.

Some of the short listed candidates are already finding a bit of fame in their local communities. Being invited to talk at science events and being interviewed by local magazines and newspapers.

In fact I have been in contact with a Western Australian candidate who is still in the running to go to Mars. He has gladly answered a few questions for us, which will be published shortly!

Personally I can’t wait for it to all start happening. I know I will be keenly following every move Mars One makes over the next decade!

Can you imagine going to Mars and never returning to Earth? What would you miss the most?

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Thomo, I’m one of the 705 Mars One candidates. I’m a fair bit older than you, because I do remember the Moon landings. But like you, I have been a space enthusiast since I was little. Obviously, I can imagine leaving Earth forever, and I’ve wrestled with what that would mean for me and my family. But the opportunity to be a first-hand part of humanity’s expansion into the solar system is just something I couldn’t pass up.
I’m not sure what I might miss most. Obviously, I will miss my wife and (adult) kids keenly, but I’ll still be able to video-mail them. Will I miss the wind on my skin? The blue skies? Restaurants? More living space than our habitat provides? Yes, certainly. But I think what I will miss most, because we will never have one during my lifetime on Mars, is a dog. Indeed, apart from bugs we are likely to take with us as a protein source, we won’t have any pets available to us. And that will be an odd thing. Humans in all cultures and all places have, since we first domesticated dogs, had pets of one sort or another: lambs, cats, birds, lizards. I think it is one of the defining characteristics of what does make us human. So we Martians will have a tough time coping with that absence, I believe.
But that said, I’m still looking forward to the chance to try.